92 
LAND OF SUNSHINE. 
tion ; we will leave him and the damn-bird and take up our 
dear delightful linnet. 
It is scarcely necessary to photograph this bird, for every¬ 
body knows him ; but pictures of our friends—and possibly of 
our enemies— appeal to the emotions, and someone may come 
to give a kind thought to the bird in consequence. July is the 
month of jubilee for the linnet. Parent birds are heard bless¬ 
ing their stars that the dangers of the brooding season are 
nearly over, while juveniles coax and whimper for more vict¬ 
uals, and brush the last remaining tuft of baby down from 
their heads against the berry bushes. 
Our home is a city ranch of about tw r o acres set to many 
varieties of fruit, making of course a veritable paradise for 
the linnets. No cats are allowed, no dogs, no small boys with 
air-guns. Since we have made a study of the linnet for fifteen 
years under these favorable conditions, we claim some ac¬ 
quaintance with the bird. Of this fact we are sure, if linnets 
are allowed to live in peace in a certain locality all the other 
birds will frequent that place. Since we make a study of birds 
in general we have endured the linnet and are even accused of 
harboring a love for the “little pest.” We plead guilty. 
Early damage done by them to the peach and apricots is not 
set down against them, since more fruit sets anyway than the 
tree can grow to perfection. When the fruit ripens we tell the 
linnets to “ fall to.” And they do it, of course. They bite as 
many peaches as they please on the topmost bough, increasing 
the area bitten as the individual ripens, and we respect a peach 
that has a bite in it. We never touch one the linnets have 
marked as theirs. So they confine their testing to these few 
on the highest bough and it is surprising how few are eaten. 
There is much more singing and twittering and talking about 
the matter than the quantity eaten justifies, exactly as at any 
banquet. The less really eaten the more fuss about it, as any 
one can see by close watch at a peach tree. We truly believe 
that if the linnets could be persuaded to “keep still” their 
wrong doing would be overlooked. It is their perpetual chat¬ 
ter that is against them. 
We sowed a patch of alfalfa for the Jersey, and our neigh¬ 
bors told us we would never see it an inch high. “The 
Damn-bird will get it.” We laughed ! It was in winter when 
seeds were scarce and no weeds had pushed their two hands 
above the cover. But we knew how to head off the linnets ; 
that was why we laughed. Under the orange trees were 
plenty of windfalls. We cut these waste oranges into halves 
and laid an “orange belt ” about the edge of our alfalfa patch. 
Not a blade of the clover was touched. One could illustrate 
the stupidity of California ranchers who lie awake o’ nights 
thinking up bad words to sling at the linnets. The birds pre- 
